he sat
sewing and thinking, planning all kinds of reforms and experiments, when
she heard Elizabeth stirring in the room next hers. It was the linen
room, and Elizabeth was putting away clean clothes, Margaret knew by the
clank of the drawer-handles. Now! this was the moment to begin. She laid
down her work, and went into the linen room.

"May I see you put them away, Elizabeth?" she asked. "I always like to
see your piles of towels,--they are so even and smooth."

Elizabeth looked up, and her face brightened. "And welcome, Miss
Margaret!" she said. "I'll be pleased enough. 'Tis dreadful lonesome,
and Mis' Cheriton gone. Not that she could come up here, I don't mean;
but I always knew she was there, and she was like a mother to me, and I
could always go to her. Yes, miss, the towels do look nice, and I love
to keep 'em so."

"They are beautiful!" said Margaret, with genuine enthusiasm, for the
shelves and drawers were like those she had read about in "Soll und
Haben." She had loved them in the book, but never thought of looking at
them in reality. "Oh, what lovely damask this is, Elizabeth! It shines
like silver! I never saw such damask as this."

"'Tis something rare, miss, I do be told," Elizabeth replied.

"Mr. Montfort brought them towels back from Germany, three years ago,
because he thought they would please his aunt, and they did, dear lady.
Hand spun and wove they are, she said; and there's only one place where
they make this weave and this pattern. See, Miss Margaret! 'Tis roses,
coming out of a little loaf of bread like; and there was a story about
it, some saint, but I don't rightly remember what. There! I have tried
to remember that story, ever since Mis' Cheriton went, but it seems I
can't."

"Oh, oh, it must be Saint Elizabeth of Hungary!" cried Margaret, bending
in delight over the smooth silvery stuff. "Why, how perfectly
enchanting!"

"Yes, miss, that's it!" cried Elizabeth, beaming with pleasure. "Saint
Elizabeth it was; and maybe you'll know the story, Miss Margaret. I
never like to ask Mr. Montfort, of course, but I should love dearly to
hear it."

Margaret asked nothing better. She told the lovely story as well as she
knew how, and before she had finished, Elizabeth's eyes as well as her
own were full of tears. One of Elizabeth's tears even fell on the towel,
and she cried out in horror, and wiped it away as if it had been a
poison-spot, and laid the sacred damask back in its place. Margar